Covering about one third of the Earth's land service, forests provide many benefits. The most notable direct benefits are an estimated 5000 commercial products, such as lumber, paper, turpentine, and others, worth billions of dollars a year. Forests also provide refuge from hectic urban life and opportunities for many forms of recreation. In many poorer nations, forests are a source of wood for cooking and heating. Forests are also home to many of the world's species. Forests benefit us indirectly by protecting watersheds from soil erosion, and keep rivers and reservoirs relatively free of silt. Forests reduce the severity of floods and facilitate aquifer recharge and they assist in the recycling of water, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, and other nutrients.
Despite the great benefits of forests, only13% of the world's forestlands is under any kind of management. In addition, only 2% of the world's forests are protected in forest reserves.
Since the advent of agriculture, about 33% of the world's forests have been cleared and converted to other uses, mostly farms and human settlements. To date, the United States and Africa have both lost about one-third of their forests, while Brazil, the Philippines, and Europe have lost 40%, 50% and 70%, respectively. Moreover, deforestation continues virtually everywhere. By one estimate, 17 million hectares (42 million acres) of tropical rain forests - equal to the area the size of Washington state - are leveled each year. The World Bank estimates that within a decade the number of tropical countries that export wood will drop from 33 to about 10. In India, forestland is shrinking by 1 million hectors (3.75 million acres) per year. At its current rate of harvest, China will lose all of its commercial forests within ten years. In the 1980s, softwood harvest on the West Coast of the United States exceeded sustainable yield by 25% on privately owned land and 61% on national forests.
An aerial view of the Maine North Woods, the Brazilian rainforests or the ancient forests of the Pacific Northwest reveal gruesome wastelands where once there were thriving forest ecosystems. Diverse forests have been replaced by the planted rows of tree plantations, to be harvested rather than nurtured as a living system. We continue to clear-cut our forests at a dizzying rate, seemingly oblivious to the economic and environmental reality that soon we will have no remaining natural ecosystems. Logging on both public and private lands is having a disastrous effect on many forest-dependent species.
We believe that the heavy use of forests might not be so bad if investments were made to replant trees at a rate commensurate with cutting. In developing countries, for every 10 trees cut down only 1 tree is replanted. In Africa the ratio is 29 to 1. Replanting programs need to be prioritized by those benefiting wildlife and species diversity verses those having lesser benefit.
